The task at hand
We are going to take... |
that robot arm, and... |
put it there... |
First, a trip to the hardware store
Peter piled in the back seat. |
Just like Hank Hill, we had to check out the lawn mowers. |
Doo, dee, doo... |
We need some of these. And some of those. |
Some prep work
This thing needs some way to bolt it to the ceiling. |
Alan makes some supporting beams out of 2x6s. |
They are bolted to the base of the arm with lag bolts. |
Okay, that looks good. Now just to flip it up there... |
It was real darn heavy. So we decided to make some stilts out of 2x4s. |
Okay, now just flip it up there... |
Move it into place
Well, it was real darn heavy. So instead of just flipping it up there, we decided to hoist it up the wall. |
Jeff is pretending it was real hard to manage. |
We let it down on a floor jack. It was very easy to balance. AS LONG AS IT WASN'T MORE THAN ABOUT 3 DEGREES FROM VERTICAL!!! |
The theory was we would just roll it across the floor... Alan would jerk the floor jack 1 to 3 inches. Then Jeff would carefully rebalance it before it had a chance to kill anybody. It literally took us 30 minutes to move 20 feet across the floor. |
When we got it into place we jacked it up against the ceiling. |
Alan started bolting it into place. These are lag bolts again. |
When I nod my head, hit it... |
Finishing the last bolt. |
Then we let the jack down. |
Look Ma. No hands. |
Alan is brave enough to stand under it. |
The lag bolts are screwed into the ceiling joists. |
Now for a test drive.
This is the parked position. |
This is the fully extended position. |
Alan does some manual driving. |
It can reach all the way up to the ceiling. |
Checking the position numbers. |
And Alan's car still fits in the garage. |